In a background art, there is widely provided an image forming apparatus of a laser printer or the like having a configuration including an image forming section and a sheet conveying path for conveying a sheet as a recorded medium to the image forming section. The sheet conveying path is generally constituted by a plurality of guide members and various processings are carried out at inside of the image forming apparatus while guiding the recorded medium by the guide members. There is an example of such an image forming apparatus shown in, for example, JP-A-2004-294988.
Meanwhile, according to the configuration disclosed in JP-A-2004-294988, portions of the guide members constituting the conveying path are made to be displaceable to facilitate maintenance when a clogging occurs in the conveying path. Specifically, the image forming apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2004-294988 has a configuration capable of forming images on both faces of the recorded medium and a rear cover member constituting an inverting path and a reconveying tray constituting a reconveying path are constituted as portions of the guide members for guiding the recorded medium. According to the apparatus, when the sheet is clogged at vicinities of the members, maintenance is facilitated by operating to open or close or operating to attach and detach the members.
On the other hand, according to the image forming apparatus in which portions of the guide members are displaceably configured in this way, in order to avoid the recorded medium from being carried when the guide members are not disposed at normal guide positions, it is necessary to provide a configuration of detecting whether the guide members are disposed at the normal guide positions. However, according to the configuration of the background art, detecting units are provided to respectives of the plurality of guide members and detection is carried out for the respective guide members and therefore, a number of parts is increased and the apparatus tends to be large-sized.